In Praise of Good Women.

When
we take into consideration the exalted character of many of the women
we meet in private life, it is curious to note how few the records of
the lives of good women are.

"Warriors and statesmen have their meed of praise,
And what they do or suffer, men record;
But the long sacrifice of women's days
Passes without a though, without a word;
And many a lofty struggle for the sake
Of duties, sternly, faithfully fulfilled--
For which the anxious mind must watch and wake,
And the strong feelings of the heart be stilled--
Goes by unheeded as the summer wind,
And leaves no memory and no trace behind!
Yet it must be more holy courage dwells
In one meek heart which braves an adverse state,
Than his whose ardent soul indignant swells,
Warmed by the fight, or cheered through high debate."
[from The Dream by Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton]

Of the lives of great women, there is no such neglect, but it is noticeable
that the qualities that have won them recognition have, in most cases,
been those that suggest power rather than worth, achievement in effort
rather than beauty of life; and that, though goodness may have been an
incidental quality, their title to eminence has been advanced rather on
the ground of masculine than of feminine characteristics, and less by
reference to standards set by their own nature than to standards set by
the nature of men.

But,
if there are few records to commemorate the lives of good women,
literature abounds with the tributes of great men to their wisdom and
magnanimity in the abstract.

"I
have always said it," remarked [Gotthold Ephraim] Lessing, "nature meant to make woman as
its masterpiece,"--a noble sentiment which James Russell Lowell
crystallized in a poetical gem of the first water:--

"A
good woman," says Thackeray, "is the loveliest flower that blooms under
heaven; and we look with love and wonder upon its silent grace, its
pure fragrance, its delicate bloom of beauty. Sweet and beautiful! The
fairest and the most spotless! Is it not a pity to see them bowed down
or devoured by grief or death inexorable, wasting in disease, pining
with long pain, or cut off by sudden fate in their prime? We may
deserve grief, but why should these be unhappy? Except that we know
that Heaven chastens those whom it loves best; being pleased by
repeated trials, to make these pure spirits more pure."

With
clear insight, Wordsworth has portrayed the gradual unfolding of the
mind of a man ere he begins to understand the true inwardness of the
woman upon whom he has set his affections, and the revelation that
awaits him when he comes to realize how beautiful a thing the mind of a
good woman is. Not until he himself has attained to some culture can he
comprehend it, and the manner in which the poet has depicted his
awakenment as occurring after experience had taught him that physical
beauty and expertness in household affairs are not necessarily the
highest qualities of woman, is characteristic in its absolute fidelity
to nature. But let the lines speak for themselves. They cannot be too
often repeated:--

"She was a phantom of delight
When first she gleam'd upon my sight;
A lovely apparition, sent
To be a moment's ornament;
Her eyes as stars of twilight fair,
Like twilight's, too, her dusky hair;
But all things else about her drawn
From Maytime and the cheerful dawn;
A dainty shape, an image gay,
To haunt, to startle, and waylay.

"I saw her, upon nearer view,
A spirit, yet a woman too!
Her household motions light and free
And steps of virgin liberty;
A countenance in which did meet
Sweet records, promises as sweet;
A creature not too bright or good
For human nature's daily food,
For transient sorrows, simple wiles,
Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears and smiles.

"And now I see, with eye serene,
The very pulse of the machine;
A being breathing thoughtful breath,
A traveler betwixt life and death;
The reason firm, the temperate will,
Endurance, foresight, strength and skill;
A perfect woman, nobly plann'd,
To warn, to comfort and command;
And yet a spirit still and bright,
With something of an angel's light."

As
it affects women, no maxim has received wider confirmation than the
saying that "men make the laws, women make the morals." From Sophocles
to Browning, the poets and thinkers of all ages bear witness to the part
women play in setting the standards of conduct, and in preserving men
from the abuse of the power reposed in them and making their efforts
respond to the calls of humanity and the dictates of the heart.

"Oh Woman! lovely woman! Nature made thee
To temper man; we had been brutes without you."
[ from the play "Venice Preserved" by Thomas Otway)

In
this connection, how well deserved is Garibaldi's testimony, uttered
with all the fervour of a lofty soul. "So far from being his
'inferior,'" he says, "woman was appointed the instructress of man, and
was designed by the Creator to mould and educate his moral nature." [from "The Rule of the Monk by Giuseppe Garibaldi]

And
Dupanloup's:--"In making her weak in body, God has given her the germ
of all that is great and morally strong. There are no noble works in
which woman has not been mixed up: at first the teachers, then the
inspiring geniuses of men, and often the sharers of their labours."

To
woman as a beacon on the path of duty, what tribute is more tender than
Browning's?

"Love, if you knew the light
That your soul casts in my sight;
How I look to you,
For the pure and true,
And the beauteous and the right."
[from A Lovers' Quarrel by Robert Browning]

Or more devout than Pierre Vidal's?

"If aught of goodness or of grace
Be mine, hers be the glory;
She led me on in wisdom's path,
And set the light before me."
[Pierre Vidal, who died in 1229, has been called "the Don Quixote of Troubadours"]

The
exaltation we experience in sensation from good music or fine scenery,
we experience, in fact, from good women in the permanent elevation of our
daily life. A thing of beauty is a joy for ever. {Keats] But it is more than a
joy; it is a force, a force vital with the power of animating men to
realize the best that is in them. This is what [Giuseppe/Joseph] Mazzini means when he
says, "Seek in woman, not merely a comfort, but a force, an inspiration,
the redoubling of your intellectual and moral faculties." [from his essay, "Duties Towards the Family"]

But,
unlike the influence of the beautiful as we find it expressed in good
music or fine scenery, the influence of good women has a direct
connection with human conduct, through the medium of those faculties of
quick insight, prompt judgment and immediate expression which are
characteristic of their sex. Possessed of these, the good woman becomes
what is more than the passive exemplar and inspiration of man; she
becomes his active counselor, and thereby justifies to the full,
Voltaire's famous appreciation, "All the reasonings of men are not
worth one sentiment of women."

"Beshrew my heart, but it is wondrous strange;
Sure there is something more than witchcraft in them,
That masters ev'n the wisest of us all."
[from the 1714 play "Jane Shore" by Nicholas Rowe]

In
Virginibus Puerisque [a collection of essays], Robert Louis Stevenson admits to the acquaintance
of a woman who cannot so much as understand the meaning of the word
politics, and has given up trying to distinguish Whigs from Tories. But
on her own ground, he says, ask her about other men or women, and the
chicanery of every-day existence--the rubs, the tricks, the vanities on
which life turns--and you will not find many more shrewd, trenchant or
humorous. [1]

Let
us then follow the advice of a profound thinker, who warns us not to
shrink from the woman of sound sense. "If she become attached to you,"
he observes, "it will be from seeing and valuing similar qualities in
yourself. You may trust her, for she knows the value of your
confidence; you may consult her, for she is able to devise, and does so
at once with the firmness of reason and the consideration of affection.
Her love will be lasting, for it will not have been lightly won; it
will be strong and ardent, for weak minds are not capable of the
loftier grades of passion. If you prefer attaching yourself to a woman
of feeble understanding, it must be either from fearing to encounter a
superior person, or from the poor vanity of preferring that admiration
which springs from ignorance to that which approaches to appreciation." [2]

Naturally,
as his wife and mother, woman calls forth from man his sincerest
panegyric. And this not only by direct apostrophe! For are we not told
that each man forms his opinion of the other sex from the woman with
whom he is brought into closest communication, and that in praising
woman he generally bears unconscious testimony to the character of that
good wife or mother who has won his appreciation. If we remember that
the best qualities of women evade the uninterested observer and are
disclosed to men only in the course of the nearest intimacy, we shall
see how well justified this reasoning is.

Of the
high character of women as wives, we find mention in the earliest
writings.

"The wife is the honour of the family," we read in the Mahabharata [ancient India/Hindu], "she who presents the children; the wife is the man's vital spirit, is the man's half, is his best friend, and the source of his best felicity. The wife with her endearing discourse is the friend in solitude, the mother of the oppressed, and a refreshment on the journey in the wilderness of life."

From
such a noble estimate of women written in the golden period of Aryan
literature, and echoed and re-echoed through succeeding ages, what more
natural than the grave utterance of [Jean Paul Friedrich] Richter's--"No man can either live piously or die righteous without a wife"; or of [Jules] Michelet's. "To be a man in a true sense is, in the first place, and above all things, to have a wife." And the advice of Shelley's--"Win her and wear her if you can. She is the most delightful of God's creatures, Heaven's best gift, man's joy and pride in prosperity, man's support and comforter in affliction."

"She is so conjunctive to my life and soul,
That as a star moves not but in its sphere,
I could not but by her"
[Hamlet, Shakespeare]

Goethe
pictured to himself a heaven upon earth spent in the companionship of a
wife who would everywhere cooperate with him, and whose occupation
would spread itself on every side, while his must travel forward on its
single path; not the heaven of an enthusiastic bliss, he says, but of a
sure life on earth; order in prosperity, courage in adversity, care for
the smallest, and a spirit capable of comprehending and managing the
greatest. To the man who "knows the world, who understands what he
should do in it, and what he should hope from it," nothing can be more
precious than the sympathy that comes from the companionship of one
capable of understanding him.

Of the constancy of good women, great men are in no doubt!

"No man," says Washington Irving with tender pathos, "knows what the wife of his bosom is, no man knows what a ministering angel she is, until he has gone with her through the fiery trials of this world." [The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon]

Or the testimony of [James] Sheridan Knowles! "Save the love we pay to Heaven, there is none purer, holier, than that a virtuous woman feels for him she would cleave through life to. Sisters part from sisters, brothers from brothers, children from their parents, but such a woman from the husband of her choice, never!"

Or of Barry Cornwall!

"'Tis woman alone, with a purer heart,
Can see all these idols of life depart,
And live the more, and smile and bless
Man in his uttermost wretchedness."

But how irreparable is the loss of such a wife, a man's faithful adviser,
the guardian of his health, and the "rudder of his household!" "It is,"
says [Alphonse de] Lamartine, "as if his right hand was withered; as if one wing of his angel was broken, and every movement that he made brought him to the ground." Nothing could better illustrate the depth of his
affliction than the touching inscriptions that were written by two
great men to the memory of their wives, and which we quote. The first
is Thomas Carlyle's. It runs:--"Here, likewise, now rests Jane Welsh
Carlyle, spouse of Thomas Carlyle, Chelsea, London. She was born at
Hadington, 14th July, 1801. In her bright existence she had more
sorrows than are common, but also a self-invincibility, a clearness of
discernment, and a noble loyalty of heart, which are rare. For forty
years she was the true and loving helpmate of her husband, and by act
and word unweariedly forwarded him as none else could in all of worthy
that he did or attempted. She died at London, 21st April, 1866,
suddenly snatched away from him, and the light of his life, as if gone
out."

The
other is the tribute of John Stuart Mill to the memory of Harriet Mill.
It reads:--"To the beloved memory of Harriet Mill, the dearly loved and
deeply regretted wife of John Stuart Mill. Her great and loving heart,
her noble soul, her clear, powerful, original and comprehensive
intellect, made her the guide and support, the instructor in wisdom,
the example in goodness, as she was the chief earthly delight, of those
who had the happiness to belong to her. As earnest for all public good
as she was generous and devoted to all who surrounded her, her
influence has been felt in many of the greatest improvements of the
age, and will be in those still to come. Were there even a few hearts
and intellects like hers, this world would already become the hoped-for
heaven. She died to the irreparable loss of those who survived her, at
Avignon, November 3rd, 1858."

As
mothers, good women have always had the reverence of great men. Comte
points out that intellectual force is, with all its pretensions, not in
itself more moral than material force--that each is but an instrument,
the merit depending entirely upon its right employment. He says we have
neglected the moral side of education, giving too much importance to
the intellectual side, and thus rendering the heart subordinate to the
intellect. For this reason, he says, "the best tutor, however
sympathetic his nature, will be always far inferior to a good mother. A
mother may often not be able to explain the reason of the principle on
which she acts, but the wisdom of her plan will generally show itself
in the end. Without formal teaching, she will take every opportunity of
showing her children, as no other instructor could show them, the joy
that springs from generous feelings, and the misery of yielding to
selfishness." [A General View of Positivism, by Auguste Comte, p. 180]

Though
we depart from our original design of appealing only to the testimony
of men, we cannot refrain from reproducing here the sympathetic picture
Mrs. [Sarah Stickney] Ellis gives in The Mothers of Great Men, of that vital phase of
motherhood that M. Guyau called "the maternity of the heart and mind."

"There
is but one woman in the whole world," the passage runs, "who can be to
a boy exactly what he wants, and that woman is his mother. Most pitiable then is the young heart of an affectionate boy who has early lost his mother. . . When a boy is so highly gifted as to be peculiarly brilliant or successful, he wants his mother to rejoice in his glory, because he knows that her rejoicing will be sincere. When he is particularly dull, or finds learning very difficult, he wants his mother to give him a little secret encouragement or perhaps a little private help. When he is affectionate, he wants his mother, because he can love her without shame. When he has done wrong, he wants to weep the tears of penitence upon his mother's breast; and when he would begin to lift his trembling soul to God, he wants his mother to teach him how to pray. Above all, when half man, half boy, a new existence dawns upon him, and temptation within as well as without, lead him on to make experiments of untried fields of action, he wants his mother to confide in; and from her alone, perhaps, of all the world, will he bear to be warned or reprimanded, if he has gone too far, or ventured to set his foot upon the path of sin.

"With
these fundamental principles of conduct and elements of character, a
woman even of ordinary talent may be so conversant, her perception may
be so clear, and her moral sense so true, that if she cannot instruct
her boy in the lesson of the schools, she may teach him much that he
will have to learn in after association with his fellow-men, and much
that will be of infinite importance to him when he meets them in the
field of action, and measures his strength with theirs.

"Indeed,
it would be impossible to set limits either to the extent or the value
of that wisdom which a mother may impart to her son before he enters
upon independent life; and especially when he is passing through that
transition state from which so many ways diverge--from which, too, so
many, to all appearance innocent at first, lead downwards into depths
that no mother's eye would seek to penetrate. But if the mother shrinks
from knowing to what such downward paths may lead, she ought to know,
and often does know, what marks their commencement as being false in
promise and fatal in experiment. Thus, with their quick sense of right
and wrong, women often can discriminate more clearly than men between
the upward and the downward tendency of those steps which a young takes
first with hesitation, but afterwards with boldness and resolution, so
that no mother's hand can draw him back should the opportunity of early
decision have been neglected."

"Happy he
With such a mother! faith in womankind
Beats with his blood, and trust in all things high
Comes easy to him, and though he trip and fall
He shall not bind his soul with clay."
[from The Princess, by Alfred, Lord Tennyson]

"Shakespeare
has no heroes," says Ruskin, "he has only heroines . . . There is
hardly a play that has not a perfect woman in it, steadfast in grave
hope and errorless purpose--Cordelia, Desdemona, Isabella, Hermione,
Imogen, Queen Catherine, Perdita, Sylvia, Viola, Rosalind, Helena, and
last, and perhaps loveliest, Virgilia, are all faultless; conceived in
the highest heroic type of humanity. . . Such, in broad light, is
Shakespeare's testimony to the position and character of women in human
life. He represents them as infallibly faithful and wise
counsellors--incorruptibly just and pure examples--strong always to
sanctify, even when they cannot save." [Sesame and Lilies, pp. 116,
117, 121.]

"Woman," says Comte, "is the spontaneous priestess of humanity." As the
companions of men, women have always been sought for guidance in the
affairs of human conduct, and with the intuitive power they have to
give sound advice, what office can better befit them that the office of
priestess? Their penetration, the balance and wholeness of their minds,
their responsiveness to the subtle appeals of nature, their mother-wit
that makes philosophy immediate; each and all mark them out as the true
guides of man in an age when the conditions of remunerative labour lead
him farther and farther from the simple life of earth's creatures.

"Woman,
deeply thoughtful and moral," says [Ernest] Renan, "alone can heal the sores of the
present time; alone can take up anew the education of man, and bring
back the taste for the beautiful and good."

Priestesses!
"Every book of knowledge is implanted in the heart of a woman!" says an
oriental sage. What qualification can better befit a priestess? An
inward illumination revealing to us by word and deed the abiding laws
of God.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

[1] exact quote: "I know a woman who, from some distaste or disability, could never so much as understand the meaning of the word 'politics', and has given up trying to distinguish Whigs from Tories; but take her on her own politics, ask her about other men or women and the chicanery of everyday existence--the rubs, the tricks, the vanities on which life turns-and you will not find many more shrewd, trenchant, and humorous. Nay, to make plainer what I have in mind, this same woman has a share of the higher and more poetical understanding, frank interest in things for their own sake, and enduring astonishment at the most common."

[2] The quote was used in various magazines; the earliest found online is The Southern Rosebud, or, Youth's Gazette, 1832; here is the complete text: "Never shrink from a woman of strong sense. If she become attached to you, it will be from seeing and valuing similar qualities in yourself. You may trust her, for she knows the value of your confidence; you may consult her, for she is able to advise, and does so at once with the firmness of reason, and the consideration of affection. Her love will be lasting, for it will not have been slightly won; it will be strong and ardent, for weak minds are not capable of the loftier grades of the passion. If you prefer attaching yourself to a woman of feeble understanding, it must be from the fear of encountering a superior person, or from the poor vanity of preferring that admiration which springs from ignorance, to that which arises from appreciation. A woman, who has the beauty of feminine delicacy and grace--who has the strong sense of a woman, yet softened and refined by the influence of womanly feeling; whose passions are strong, but chastened and directed by delicacy; whose mind is brilliant, alike from its natural emanations and its stores and acquirements; whose manners have been formed by the imperceptible influence of good society, in its broad sense, yet are totally free irom the consciousness and affectation of an etiquette, though it be the highest--who, though she shines, and enjoys the world, finds her heart's happiness at home--is not this the noblest, and the sweetest of the creatures made by God? -- MARY."